The Great Pumpkin Fail
by somewhereinthedreams
Summary: Federal Agents carving pumpkins...what could possibly go wrong? Pike centric but everyone makes an appearance.


Mike used to love Halloween.

Costume parties. Bobbing for apples. Eating candy until his stomach hurt.

Dressing up like his favorite superhero.

He didn't even mind getting roped into a ridiculous couples costume if he was trying to impress a girl. Which was exactly how he ended up agreeing to dress up as a 1920s gangster, even though he wanted to go as a vampire. But Paige wanted to dress up as a flapper and he wasn't able to convince her that Dracula had a thing for flappers. At least he was able to talk her out of going as Cleopatra so he didn't have to wear a tunic.

Halloween was his favorite night to go out in college. Second only to New Year's or Homecoming.

But this. This wasn't Halloween.

This was _torture_.

Mike looked around the table, positive he was in some sort of Twilight Zone episode. Stencils, carving tools and pumpkin guts were scattered all over the kitchen table. Cheesy Halloween music played in the background, because Paige insisted it was tradition. Paige was leaning over her pumpkin, her brow furrowed in concentration with an ice pick in her hand as she delicately carved out the final touches on her pumpkin, while her foot tapped to the beat of the music.

Meanwhile, he would rather focus on her instead of the nearly disastrous pumpkin in front of him. Paige's jeans hugged her curves perfectly and she ditched her oversized sweater, leaving her in a tank top that allowed him a generous view of her cleavage every time she leaned forward. Which seemed to be the only highlight of his evening.

He would love to blame his inadequacies at pumpkin carving on being distracted by Paige, but sadly that wasn't the case.

He was on his third pumpkin fail and Paige was finishing up her _second_ elaborate design.

She had already carved out Cinderella and Prince Charming in their carriage, using three pumpkins total.

Now she was finishing up a disturbing tribute to Snow White as a zombie.

He wondered at what point Paige would stop surprising him. She spoke five languages. Her aim was deadly. She could outdrink the entire house. She was also a pool shark and apparently a pro at carving pumpkins.

Using one of the stencils Paige printed out, he tried doing a skull and failed. He _almost_ completed a spider, but it collapsed when before he finished half of it. Which led him to pick out a simpler design, something without intricate cuts.

Whatever happened to regular jack-o-lanterns? He was ready to scrap this pumpkin too and do a regular pumpkin. Only there was one problem. This was the last pumpkin.

He was nearly done, he just needed to add a few details and he would be finished.

Mike took a deep breath and picked up the knife again, determined to finish this pumpkin.

As if she could sense his frustration, Paige set down her ice pick and walked over to the other side of the table and slid next to him.

Paige kissed his cheek as she looped her arm through his, "Want some help?"

"I'm thinking this is more of an abstract interpretation on pumpkin carving," Mike explained, tracing his fingers along the ridges of his pumpkin. This wasn't horrible, the proportions were off a little so the design was larger than planned in some areas, but it was still identifiable as a cat.

"I see," Paige said, the tone of her voice letting him know she was placating him. "Tell me about it."

"Well, this cat, he..." Mike's shoulder's slumped when he realized he pressed to hard on the outline of the cat and it collapsed in the center of the pumpkin. Not that it looked much like the cat on the stencil before collapsing, but now it looked more like a helmet or something.

Fuck.

Paige started shaking next to him, trying to suppress her laughter. He appreciated her effort, really he did, but he was a disaster when it came to carving pumpkins. "Go ahead, get it all out." Mike expectantly waved his hand at her.

Paige burst into laughter, before offering him a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry," Paige apologized as her laughter died down. She slung her arm around his shoulders and playfully kissed his neck, trying to cheer him up. She really wasn't used to seeing Mike be this bad at anything. Clearly, Quantico did not train FBI Agents at pumpkin carving.

"This isn't even identifiable as anything and that was the last pumpkin," Mike said, sounding dejected.

"You really suck at carving pumpkins."

"I didn't think I'd be this bad. I'd be better off shooting designs onto pumpkins than actually carving them."

"We can do that later, if there's anything left to shoot," Paige teased, motioning to Mike's collapsed pumpkins. Was he pouting? A grown man pouting shouldn't look this adorable, but somehow he did. Maybe it was the mangled pumpkin in front of him. She reached for his hand and traced her fingers along the back of his hand, "That hand exerciser thing must only be good for improving your trigger finger because it's not helping you anywhere else."

"What's this about Mike not being good with his hands?" Johnny asked as he entered the kitchen carrying groceries.

"What the hell happened in here?" Charlie asked. She grabbed a bag from Johnny and started putting away groceries. "It's a pumpkin massacre!"

"We put newspaper down on the table!" Paige defensively said. It had been Mike's idea to put down newspaper, but she had helped.

"There's pumpkin all over the floor!"

"That's my fault," Mike explained, offering Charlie an apologetic smile and he started cleaning up the mess on the floor.

When Mike's skull collapsed, he pushed it away in disgust and it rolled off the table onto the floor, along with a pile of pumpkin guts.

Paige started to get up to help him and he shook his head, indicating that he would take care of it.

Jakes and Briggs entered from the living room carrying takeout. "We grabbed Chinese for dinner," Briggs announced as they set everything down on the counter. He glanced at the table, "Maybe we should eat in the living room."

Jakes walked around the table, inspecting the carved pumpkins one by one. "Zombie Snow White and Cinderella?"

Paige shrugged, "I like Disney Princesses." She toyed with the idea of doing a scene of Cinderella being a vampire and attacking Prince Charming, but she liked the juxtaposition of the horror and the classic, but on separate pumpkins. Not to mention she couldn't figure out if she could get all the details she wanted on a pumpkin. How could she show blood splatter on a pumpkin? That was one thing she didn't really want to research online.

"Very nice," Jakes praised. "Spider?"

Mike nodded, "Almost." He finished cleaning up the floor and sat back on the bench.

Paige threaded her fingers through his hair, "Close."

Jakes picked up the pumpkin that was supposed to be a skull and set it down without saying a word. "I like this one," Jakes said, motioning to the final pumpkin.

"Yeah?" Mike asked, perking up a little.

Paige eyed Jakes curiously as he pulled out his phone, waiting to see if he was setting Mike up to be the punchline. Not that Mike couldn't handle it, but he just felt so bad about his pumpkin _fails_ that she felt protective of him. Paige reached for Mike's hand and squeezed it. He offered her a small smile in return.

"What is it supposed to be?" Briggs carefully asked.

"It's good," Charlie insisted, smacking Briggs' arm.

Paige choked back a laugh, apparently she wasn't the only one feeling the need to defend Mike's lack of pumpkin carving skills.

"It's a bob-omb from Super Mario Brothers," Jakes explained, showing them his phone. He pointed to the side of the design. "See, that's the key, and the stem of the pumpkin is the wick."

"It was supposed to be a cat," Mike muttered.

Paige muffled her laughter by affectionately kissing the top of Mike's head.

"Boy can't carve pumpkins," Johnny said. He put away the last of the groceries and hurried to the window to get the pumpkin he carved the night before. "He's not even good with his hands."

"Why do you care if he's good with his hands? That's Paige's problem," Jakes said. "How long did you spend on that? Five hours? Six?" Jakes motioned to the grim reaper playing chess on Johnny's pumpkin. "Didn't Charlie draw that for you?"

"Does it matter? At least I tried! Your lazy ass pumpkin design took you five minutes!"

"It's Charlie Brown's shirt! He's a Halloween staple!"

"You didn't even carve anything!"

"Charlie said I didn't have to, she said drawing was fine."

Charlie shook her head as Jakes and Johnny bickered about Jakes' pumpkin.

"And your execution was flawless," Paige said, laughing. The house had carved pumpkins the night before and she had gotten a lead on a case right before they started. Mike offered to help her with her case and hold off on carving his until they could carve them together. Not that he got much carving done. She honestly didn't think he would be this bad. Otherwise, she probably would've chosen an easier design so he wouldn't have felt the need to be so ambitious. He was so competitive.

When they got home last night, Johnny was the lone roommate still carving his pumpkin. The rest had finished earlier and it was easy enough to deduce which agent carved each pumpkin.

Charlie always did a monster from a classic horror movie. Last year she chose Dracula. This year she opted for Frankenstein and the Bride of Frankenstein.

Briggs never strayed from doing a regular jack-o-lantern and this year was no exception. Triangle nose and eyes, a semblance of a smile. Mike probably should've followed Briggs' example and stuck to something basic.

As usual, Jakes grumbled about having to do one with the rest of the house, but when Charlie made it clear she expected everyone to participate, Jakes wisely grabbed a pumpkin.

Johnny chose an elaborate design and apparently had Charlie draw it out for him so he wouldn't mess it up. Even if he had Charlie's help, he did an incredible job.

Halloween was her brother's favorite holiday, so she had many years to practice carving pumpkins. Her brother would spend his entire weekend carving pumpkins and if she wanted to spend time with him, that meant she had to carve them too.

Briggs started flipping through the leftover stencils on the table. "Mike, did you print these off?"

"No, Paige did, why?"

Jakes looked over Briggs shoulder and groaned at the design in question, "Lady and the Tramp, seriously? What the _hell_ did he do to you?" Jakes asked Paige, nodding in Mike's direction.

The room erupted in laughter and she glared at Mike before snatching the stencils away from Briggs, "I printed off a bunch of Disney templates! They were all in the same document!" Maybe she and Mike were in the honeymoon phase of their relationship, but she was _not_ carving Lady and the Tramp onto a pumpkin to signify their relationship, even if it was a pretty cute scene. Paige's face softened into a smile as she looked at the stencil. It was really adorable, but she was _not_ the kind of girl that got all mushy over a guy. Even if Tramp's eyes reminded her of Mike's when he wanted her to give in.

Charlie shook her head, "If you say so," Charlie teased. "Dinner's getting cold.'

Everyone started heading towards the living room. Jakes grabbed a stack of napkins and Briggs grabbed a six pack of beer.

Mike and Paige lingered behind to clean up a little and wash their hands. Paige bumped her hip against his when they were drying their hands. "We can stop by a pumpkin patch tomorrow and pick up a few more pumpkins. I want to check out the corn maze, but it was raining when we picked these up."

"You sure?"

"We can do regular jack-o-lanterns or whatever, it's up to you. I'll help," Paige promised. Mike was definitely going to need it unless he decided to copy Jakes and do Charlie Brown's shirt.

THE END

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 **A/N: Happy Halloween everyone! I can't post the links on here, but check my tumblr (same username as here) and do a search for "Graceland Pumpkins," to see what inspired everyone's pumpkin. Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing - if you're reviewing as a guest, I'd love it if you use your first name or a user name so I can distinguish between guest reviews :)**


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